


Peter, or Why Wally's Metabolism is a Superpower

by beenwandering



Category: DCU, DCU Animated, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-12
Updated: 2011-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:52:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beenwandering/pseuds/beenwandering
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something's made the Flash, as well as his coworkers and an increasing portion of the population of Keystone City, become angry and mean seemingly for no reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WIP. Expect part two soon, hopefully.

Wally stepped outside his building and onto the busy streets of Keystone City. He glanced at the people scurrying around him on the sidewalk before lifting his head to stare into the clear, blue skies. He squinted against the bright sun and took a deep breath, exhaling with a smile.

He spoke out loud to himself and those around him as he walked. "Good morning, Keystone! Wally West at your service on this beautiful Fall day! Hello, ma'am!" He exclaimed to an elderly woman walking past. She scowled at him and sidestepped as they passed each other.

Wally frowned. That was unusual. Keystone was such a friendly city normally. 'Maybe she's already having a bad day,' he conceded, continuing his walk. It wasn't more than five minutes until he arrived at his destination, the Keystone City Central Police Department Crime Lab for Forensics Services. As KCCPDCLFS was not a particularly appealing acronym, the workers generally referred to it as 'the lab.'

He was a technician and analyst, so whenever a crime needed solving he was there! To, you know, look at the evidence under a microscope and write up his findings for a detective. He greeted Roy, the guard at the door to the lab, as he approached.

"Hey, Roy! How's it shaking, man? How're the girls?"

Roy narrowed his eyes. "Why? What have you heard? That Deena is sneaking out at night?" He spat. "That the misses is spending more time with her pottery instructor than me?"

Wally backed up with his hands high. "Woah, man! I was just being nice. What's got your...uh, never mind. I'm going to be late." He walked past Roy carefully and gave him a timid smile. "Hope things get, uh, less weird for you. Bye!"

He quickly turned and fled, wondering over Roy's behavior. Pushing through the double doors greetings of "Wally!" "Hey!" and "My man!" were yelled out to him. He called back hellos as he walked over to the station where his equipment lay.

"What do we have today, boss?" Wally asked the man approaching him.

His boss, George, clapped Wally on his back. "Blood samples from a possible assault. It's not priority, the victim hasn't pressed charges yet and the brass suspects a false report."

Wally pursed his lips and responded, "False report? You think they were self inflicted injuries?"

"Possibly. Just have to run the blood through a DNA reader. If the victim presses charges later we'll have it done for comparison. Get that set up and then help Cindy on her murder case evidence," George finished before walking over to some other workers. Wally glanced over at Cindy's station and grimaced at the pile of bags sitting on the table next to her.

"Riiiight," he muttered. "Maybe I can take an early lunch and help her after. Gonna need the energy for all that work." He started on the blood samples he had before sitting down to get some reports written up. One of his machines made a noise and he walked over to it to check on the samples. When he had everything straightened out with nothing left for the time being except to help Cindy he had used approximately two hours. '11:15,' he thought. 'I bet I can convince some of the guys to grab some pizza.'

He wandered through the halls looking a couple friends. He found Adam Bergum in the break room and Jimmy one room over in tech.

"Hey Berg, break time?" He asked the man at the table. Bergum chuckled and threw his granola bar at Wally.

"I'm waiting on a case. Boss said you've got Cindy so I'm on call if someone else needs help." Bergum replied.

Wally was busy crunching on the granola bar, but managed to spit out, "Whana gef a piffa?" which Bergum appeared to understand as some sort of lunch invitation.

"Yeah, man. Roy told me about this place the other day, Little Joey's. Said it got some new recipe that everyone's raving about."

"Little Joey's, eh? I haven't been there in a while. Sounds good. Yo, Jimmy!" He called over into the next room. Jimmy's head popped up from behind a computer monitor. He raised his eyebrows, questioning, and lifted his hand to straighten his slightly skewed glasses. "How about some pizza?" Wally yelled through the glass partition.

Jimmy looked around at the various screens surrounding him, presumably checking their progress on his work. He hit a few buttons and walked over to the break room to join Bergum and Wally. "Sure. I skipped breakfast, pizza is always a great substitute," he told them.

"Missed breakfast? Man, I don't understand how you could have lasted this long," Wally conversed as they made their way out of the lab.

"Wooo, you're right, Berg." Wally dropped a piece of crust on his plate and burped. "They definitely changed something with the sauce. I don't know, though, it tasted kind of weird."

"Weird? Wally, you just ate the entire pizza minus the four slices Jim and I took and all the breadsticks with the dipping sauce. It couldn't have been that bad," Bergum laughed.

"Yeah, yeah," he laughed with them. "Not bad at all, just different. So, back to the mounting pile of evidence, boys?" The three of them split the check at the counter before trudging back to another five hours of work, be it theirs or a coworkers.

It wasn't much later that Wally noticed his mood start to sour. It was gradual at first, irritation at someone's humming, annoyance at the messy table in front of him (something he would never normally find himself concerned with). He became more tuned into his attitude when Cindy handed him another evidence bag.

"Do you have to be so lazy, Cindy? It's not like the rest of us don't have work to do that we can all scurry over here to do your work too."

Cindy gave him a blank look, shock and embarrassment rolling off her. She quickly snatched back the bag and turned around to face her area of the table, unsuccessfully trying to concentrate on her work.

Wally huffed and turned back to what he had been fiddling with before Cindy had interrupted. 'Stupid. Can't finish her own junk so I have to come and save the day. Again,' he thought to himself. Just then he raised his head and narrowed his eyes, concentrating on something. 'That's odd. I don't think Cindy's lazy, and boss assigned me over here...I wonder why I...pfff, whatever. Too much crap to do.'

And the day went on.

Wally didn't see Jimmy and Bergum until shift ended five hours later. Bergum ended up getting assigned to help Jimmy reviewing video from a new case that had overloaded him. Wally didn't feel like bothering to say goodbye to them on his way out, but couldn't help noticing the commotion inside as he walked past.

"Geeze, Berg! Stop touching everything!" Jimmy was yelling. "Every time you press a button something breaks! What the heck, were you born this stupid?"

Bergum's face was red as he yelled back, "I'm not doing anything wrong, idiot! You keep interrupting me and distracting me! If you'd just leave I might be able to get something done! Your job is so stupidly easy, I don't even know why we bother to keep you around."

"Me? You're the gofer boy, you can't do jack except cover overflow! You don't even have a real job here."

The fight went on as Wally shrugged and continued out the door. He would have liked to head home and take a nap, but duty called; he was needed on the Watchtower. Seeing an open alley he ducked into it, changed into his costume, and used the communication bud he kept in his ear to call up to the Tower. "Flash here. Let me up."

"Sure thing, Flash. Coming in three," answered whoever was covering the monitor at the time. It sounded like Mr. Terrific, but Wally didn't care terribly. When he arrived in the Tower he immediately went to the cafeteria to grab some dinner before his shift watching the monitors. "I could go for more of that pizza from Joey's," he mumbled as he sped up to the counter.

A few minutes later he sat down with enough food to feed everyone in the room and started working his way through it. Of course, with super speed and no reason to hold back, he was done in just a few more minutes. He gave a big sigh and trudged off to do his unpaid, under-appreciated, and over-stressed side job.

When he finally made it to the monitoring station, Green Lantern was sitting in one of the other chairs; apparently they both had duty. Green Lantern turned at the sound of the slow footsteps and narrowed his eyes when he saw the Flash. "What are you doing? You purposely walked here even though you were late as it was? I know you were in the cafeteria earlier."

"Whatever. Are you going to kick me out of the League because I have five minutes late to sitting in front of a bunch of screens and listening to static? Get over it," Wally bit out.

"Excuse me?" Green Lantern said, shocked.

Wally continued, "It's not like you have a life outside of the League, GL. You're up here all the time. It doesn't take two of us, two founders, to do monitor duty. Why am I even here? You just wanted to screw up my day?"

Green Lantern furrowed his eyebrows. 'Flash must be having a bad day...' he thought. "Just sit down and take channel two."

"No way! Not with this kind of treatment. I'm going home and taking a nap. Do it yourself." With that Wally turned on his heel and zipped over to the beaming station. "Well?" he waited.

Before Green Lantern could protest Wally's behavior, Superman entered the area. "What's going on?" he asked. "Wally, aren't you supposed to be on duty right now?"

"Are you kidding me? Do I look like a child, and you my parent? 'Aren't you supposed to be on duty now?'" Wally mocked him. "I have better things to do than sit around here when there's already somebody else to do it. I don't need the two of you treating me like this. I worked all day, I had to deal with this same crap from Cindy and Roy and Jack and...and...and then had to come here and get it from you! The last thing I'm going to do is sit around and listen to 'you're late' and 'you're not doing your work.' I'm going home!" Childishly, he stamped his foot to accentuate his irritation.

Superman and Green Lantern looked at each other with incredulous expressions. Wally never acted like this. "Flash, you know we need two people on duty for all the controls, especially if trouble picks up. And you volunteered for this shift, remember?" Superman reminded him.

"Well maybe I changed my mind," he yelled back, before stopping himself. A confused expression crossed his face for a moment as, like earlier in the day, he wondered at his own behavior. He shrugged it off as his anger started to rise again, but not before the two other superheroes caught his confusion.

"Okay, Flash. Why don't you just go home and get some rest and I'll take your shift, okay? I'll give you a call later about rescheduling," Superman said to appease him.

Wally huffed, "Finally. Send me back down, now." And soon he found himself back on the streets of Keystone, running off to his apartment. Normally he would have stopped to chat with people as he passed, but he didn't really care right then.

As soon as Wally disappeared, Superman turned to the Green Lantern. "What on Earth was that all about?" he asked.

"I'm not entirely sure," Green Lantern replied. "I thought he was just in a bad mood at first, he's obviously tired. But did you see that look when he was in the middle of his rant?"

Superman nodded, "He looked very confused at himself." He sat down next to the Green Lantern. "Wally's typically a carefree guy. Everyone has bad days, but he's never flown off the handle like that at something so minor, and he knows he can switch duty if he's not feeling well. It seems like there's something else going on."

"He mentioned the people at his job, 'dealing' with them. Maybe we should swing by and see if he's been like this all day? There should still be a couple people from his shift milling around," Green Lantern suggested.

"Well, now I've got his monitoring duty," Superman laughed. "Why don't we send Atom to check it out? He's on patrol and it's pretty quiet."

Green Lantern pressed a couple buttons on the board in front of him. "Atom, this is Watchtower, come in."

Some static sizzled, then, "Atom here. What's up, guys?"

"We need you to check on some suspicious activity in Keystone. Head to the PD's forensic crime lab and ask around about first shift tech West, see if he's been out of character, when it started, and if anyone else is acting odd," Green Lantern relayed.

"Got it. Keystone? Isn't that Flash territory?" Atom questioned.

Superman cut in, "He's off tonight. We'll beam you over there in three. Let us know what you find."

Atom walked up to the crime lab just as a small group of bickering workers were leaving. He watched as they stopped walking every few steps to continue their increasingly heated argument. One man walked right into Atom before noticed him there, which would otherwise be difficult while wearing a bright blue and red spandex bodysuit.

"Watch it, buddy!" The man growled at him. Atom raised his eyebrows as he took in the angry group. He was beginning to understand why this area might be of interest. "You got a problem?" The man had noticed his staring and soon the rest of the group took notice as well.

"Oh lookie, a super hero," one of the women sang out sarcastically. "You come to stop us of our evil ways? We causing a public disturbance?"

Another man scoffed, "Please, stop evil? All they know how to do is destroy buildings, and take all my money away to fix it!"

"Yeah! We're the real Keystone heroes. We're the ones that solve the crimes. You're just hiding behind a mask so we can't get ID to hold you accountable!" The woman shouted.

"Too bad Wally's gone already. He'd grab your DNA so fast you'd think-"

"West?" The woman interrupted another man's tirade. "West can't do squat! I swear if I see him tomorrow I'm going to-"

Atom perked up at the name and interrupted again, "Technician West? From the lab?"

The man rolled his eyes, "Uh, yes? We are standing right outside the lab. Moron."

"Has he been acting oddly lately?" Atom inquired.

"Oddly! West is always odd. Spends half his day eating junk food, then today he freaks out on me for not doing my job. His job is to help me! What an idiot! I'm going to get that jerk fired!" The woman's voice began to rise with her anger over her treatment. "That bum calling me lazy? The nerve!"

"Uh, you are super lazy, Cindy. You're always the last one done, and the rest of us have to cover your work because you can't handle it." Another one of the group mentioned. Cindy turned back to the others and a new argument began. Atom observed for a moment before decided he had what he needed. Walking around the corner to get away from the shouting he contacted the Watchtower.

"Atom! What do you have for us?" Superman's voice came over the device.

"Some coworkers say a Wally West is usually lazy and spends all day eating, but today he started a heavy argument with a coworker," he reported.

Superman and Green Lantern looked at each other, that certainly sounded like Wally and how he had been acting earlier. "Did it sound isolated?" they asked.

Atom sigh, "Not a bit. When I arrived there were quite a few workers arguing with each other. They were very touchy, seemed to want to fight about everything. All of them were really mad, but from what I overheard, there really wasn't any particular cause for the fighting."

"Okay, Atom, thanks. I'll send you back over to your other patrol now," Superman told him.

"Oh, uh, okay. But what was that all-" Atom's transmission was abruptly ended as Green Lantern pushed the button to beam him back to his original location.

Green Lantern swiveled the chair he was in around to face Superman's morose expression. "Well then," he stated.

Superman met his eyes and continued, "Let's go get Wally back."

A crash resonated through the one-bedroom hole-in-the-wall Wally called home. "Stupid lamp! All...flickering...and stuff. Geeze, I need some more pizza," his grumbling voice followed the sounds of destruction. Superman and Green Lantern, now donning the outfits of Clark Kent and John Stewart, walked quickly up to Wally's door. Hearing the noises they bypassed knocking and just walked right in, breaking the lock.


	2. Chapter 2

A crash resonated through the one-bedroom hovel Wally called home. "Stupid lamp! All...flickering...and stuff. Geeze, I need some more pizza," his grumbling voice followed the sounds of destruction. Superman and Green Lantern, now donning the outfits of Clark Kent and John Stewart, walked quickly up to Wally's door. Hearing the noises they bypassed knocking and just walked right in, breaking the lock.

"What do you think you're doing here?" Wally yelled at them, astonished.

Clark looked around the apartment. "You're destroying your home, Wally! What's going on?"

With a growl Wally grabbed his coat and stormed past Clark at superspeed. Clark threw a glance at John before racing after Wally. He quickly caught sight of the blurry figure weaving through people and objects on the sidewalk.

A chase ensued as Wally glanced behind and saw Clark's figure trailing him. The frown present on his face all day deepened as he decided to show the other man just who he was messing with. He quickened his step easily and soon Clark was struggling to keep up. The two were just colors speeding past pedestrians, and although it was as easy as stepping around a stone while walking for Wally to avoid the people around him when at super speed, more than a few people found themselves with bruised shoulders.

Clark knew he couldn't continue the chase for too much longer. It would be a wasted evening to simply trail his friend until he felt like stopping. Clark had never been as fast as Wally, hunting a prey he could never catch wouldn't help anything. Clark came to an abrupt stop in an alley and, checking that no one was watching, flew up to the roof of the building. From there he had a clear view of the surrounding streets and attempted to find Wally. If he couldn't chase, maybe he could keep an eye on Wally and just catch him when he eventually stopped. After a few seconds of searching Clark spotted Wally's blurred form weaving up and down Fifth Avenue. He tracked Wally as he seemed to run blindly through the road, knocking people down if they were in his path. Clark noticed him glance over his shoulder, apparently finally registering that he wasn't be followed any more. His path zagged a hard right as he veered into Little Joey's Pizza Parlor. Clark jumped off the roof and headed in that direction.

He came to a stop at the door of the pizza shop. Not wanting to alert Wally of his presence and make him run again, he stayed outside and watched through the window. Wally was munching on a piece of pizza, an empty box already behind him, while one of the workers turned to yell at him.

"You no-good thief! You have to pay for the food before you eat it!" The person yelling at a bored and irritated looking Wally couldn't have been older than 20. His face was slowly turning red as Wally ignored his protests. "That wasn't even your order, you just stole it from those people in the corner!" he continued.

At this Wally spun around and slammed his hands on the counter. Shouting around a mouthful of crust he said, "And why should those people in the corner, who I don't even know, get this pizza when I wanted it? I've been running around doing this city's dirty work for years and I can't even have a pizza?" His voice was rising steadily as he became engrossed in his sudden mistreatment at the city's hands. Clark decided to it would be a good time to grab Wally while he was distracted, and before the fight got more out of hand and details were loosed. He slammed the door open, ran up, grabbed Wally by the wrist and dragged him away before the worker could take a breath to argue back.

Clark managed a strong enough grip on Wally that he couldn't get away in the time it took Clark to get them around the corner and into a darkened alleyway. He pushed his com-link and yelled to whoever answered, "We need transport back! Now!" Sensing the urgency, Batman immediately activated the teleportation beam. He swiveled his chair to face the landing pad as Clark, still tightly gripping Wally's wrist, materialized.

"Let me go!" Wally shouted. "What, now you're the big bad policeman of the League, too? Not satisfied with policing the whole world, you have to control the other superheroes too?" Batman sent a questioning look to Clark and Wally continued to rant mindlessly at them in the background.

"Call Green Lantern and have him come back, let him know I've got Wally," he told Batman. "I'm going to take him over to the medical bay and we can explain there." Batman turned back around, spoke quietly to into a hidden microphone speaker, and soon Green Lantern was in the room with him.

"Superman's taken Wally to Medical," he said before turning and stalking down the hallway that led to the medical bay. Green Lantern quickly fell in step beside him. The two of them didn't speak until they reached the area Clark had taken Wally.

When they arrived they saw Wally being examined by the on-site doctor, though not without great protest. Clark still had a grip on Flash's hands, obviously not trusting the straps on the bed to hold him. The doctor had a needle he was trying to get into Wally's arm, but Wally was shaking his body back and forth trying to get free and the doctor couldn't clearly hit a vein.

When Clark heard Green Lantern and Batman enter the bay he turned his head toward them and called, "Can you come help me out here? Hold down his arm for the doctor."

Batman and Green Lantern grabbed the arm the doctor was trying to use, holding him steady enough for the needle to penetrate the skin.

Wally yelled his protests. "You can't just force a guy into the hospital and poke him with needles! You need my consent! I know my rights, you're holding me against my will."

"We need to find out what's going on, Wally," Clark said. "Something's making you act this way."

"I can act however I want. Just because you don't like it doemmmphh!" His sentence was cut off as Batman used one of his hands to muffle Wally's mouth.

"I can't handle your talking nonstop on a normal day. I like it even less when you're talking nonsense." Turning to the doctor, he stated, "Get to it."

Wally continued to shout under Batman's hand as the doctor drew back the plunger and withdrew a vial of blood. As he removed the needle Green Lantern asked him, "Can't you give him something to make him calm down, or sleep?"

The doctor shook his head. "His metabolism is too fast. I have to give him an extremely high dose, and that's just not safe to do until I know what else he has in his system." He took the vial over to the vast machinary the Watchtower was equipped with.

Clark, Batman, and Green Lantern continued to hold down Wally while the doctor started running tests on the blood, but after a particularly violent struggle from Wally, Batman growled, "Let's move him to a containment room. The iron room."

The iron room was routinely where Superman went to keep himself in shape and hone his powers when he had to be on the Watchtower for longer periods of time. The walls were a foot thick and made of iron, hence the name. They all knew it was highly unlikely Wally would try to vibrate himself out through such a thick and dense material.

Clark nodded and said to the other two, "John, grab his legs. I've got this side. Bruce, you grab his other side. Ready?" They lifted Wally up as one and quickly shuffled out the door and down the hall. A left, another left, a sharp right, second door.

The three all but tossed Wally inside before shutting the door quickly. Clark used the keypad lock to enter the locking code which made the keypad inside the room unreponsive. As soon as Batman heard the lock loudly click into place he spun on his heel and eyed Clark and Green Lantern. "Would someone like to explain the situation to me?" he demanded.

Green Lantern turned and gestured back toward the control room, indicating they should speak there. The walk was quick and Batman made sure to activate the monitor inside the iron room so they could keep an eye on Wally before the explanations began. "Well?" Batman prompted.

Clark and Green Lantern looked at each other before Clark sheepishly answered, "We're not entirely sure, actually." Batman glared until he continued. "We noticed Wally was acting very different that usual earlier today. He seemed angry at everything for no reason, and quick to get out of patrol duty. But he also looked like he might not be in control of what he was doing. I had Atom check his work for anything out of the ordinary and he said all of Wally's coworkers were acting the same way. When I tried to get him to come back to the Watchtower he put up a big fight. I had to chase him through half the city before I finally got a hold of him when he stopped to steal some pizza."

Batman's eyes narrowed. "Definitely out of character." He looked at the monitor to see Wally was consistently running in circles around the room. He occasionally stopped to yell at the camera, but thankfully Batman had turned off the sound.

Just then the doctor who had been running tests on the blood ran up to them.


	3. Chapter 3

"There's a chemical compound in his system," the doctor announced as he entered the room. "It's not like one I've seen before. It's definitely a home brew, unrefined and amateur, but very effective."

"Have you determined its purpose?" Batman questioned him.

The doctor looked down at his notes and frowned slightly. "It's somewhat a mix of chlorpromazine and alprazolam. Chlorpromazine is typically used to treat patients experiencing hallucinations. However, it can cause the patient to experience uncontrolled agitation and fits of rage. The makeup of the chlorpromazine has been slightly altered to increase that effect. Obviously we're seeing that in the Flash and I do believe that was the primary purpose of the compound."

Superman made a discouraged noise to himself while Green Lantern asked, "And the other chemical?"

"Alprazolam. It's used to treat anxiety disorders. It's also rather habit-forming. I believe its addition to the mixture was to simply get people to take more," he explained.

"Alright," Green Lantern said. "Someone is getting people to take an addictive drug that causes them to become uncontrollably violent while it's in their system. Do we know why? Or how they're taking it? I can't imagine Flash willingly taking a drug like that."

Superman suddenly shouted, "The pizza!" Seeing the blank looks of his friends, he continued, "Flash had been grumbling about pizza since we caught up with him at his home, and he made a point to stop for more even when I was chasing after him. Atom reported all of Flash's coworkers were also touchy and arguing for no reason. A group of friends all showing the same symptoms, it could be the food they're sharing, right?"

The doctor's face brightened, "Very true, Superman. These are all drugs taken orally and could easily have been turned to powder and mixed into something without being detected, especially if other strong flavors are present to mask the medicinal taste."

Bruce leaned forward against the console and added, "There's no way to test for that on Flash, though."

The doctor's face fell back into a sobering look. "No, there isn't. With Flash's superhigh metabolism, any food he ate is already being digested and obtaining a sample would be impossible. I was lucky the drug was still in his system when he came in. I approximate it would normally take two hours for something like this drug mix to completely leave his body, but with the running he's been doing since being put in that room, it is likely to be gone in another half-hour or so."

"Thank you, doctor." Batman dismissed the man and waited for him to leave before turning back to the other two.

"Now what?" Superman asked him.

"We wait."

Twenty minutes later Batman turned the speaker in Flash's cell back on. A soft voice began to filter through the console.

"Uh, guys? I, uh, I'm not really sure what's going on. I mean, I remember it and everything and I get why I'm in here, but I don't know why I was doing it…can I come out now? I promise I'm not going to run. Well no I can't promise I won't run but I promise I won't run away?"

The three superheroes listening glanced at each other. "I think it's okay. If he tries anything he'll just wear the drug out faster," Green Lantern said.

"I agree," Batman said. He turned to Superman, "Clark, go down and open the door for Wally, and be ready just in case. John and I will head to the medical bay."

Superman nodded, "We'll meet you there."

As Green Lantern and Batman left to get the doctor prepared for his patient, Superman flew down to the cell door and steeled himself to contain his friend should the Flash still be under any influence of the drug.

Once there, he pressed a button next to the door to activate the intercom. "Wally? I'm going to release the lock, now." He heard a soft cheer in response. "On the condition that you report to the medical bay for further testing."

"That's fine! Cool! Whatever! I have no idea what's going on and if the doc knows what's up then I'm all for it. Just let me out, Supes. I'm going crazy in this little room." Flash's voice answered him. "Err…more crazy at least."

Superman pressed in the code to unlock the door, and Flash slowly - as slowly as Flash did anything - poked his head through the opening. "I promise I won't try to run away again, Clark," he said sheepishly.

Superman smiled. "That's good to hear, Wally. Come on, let's get you checked out."

The two set off down the hallway in silence. After a few paces, Flash finally asked, "I don't know why I did any of that stuff." His voice was low and soft. "I'm never…I'm not that kind of person."

Superman stopped him and put a hand on his shoulder. "And that wasn't you then either. Someone drugged you, Wally. It wasn't your fault." Flash gave him an incredulous look.

"W-what?" They continued walking as Superman explained what they had learned. Flash's face went from incredulous to baffled, to angry, to sad. "Why would someone do that?"

"That's what we're going to find out next." Batman told him as they walked into the medical bay. The doctor turned toward the group while holding some equipment.

"Flash, good to see you feeling better," he said, politely. "Please sit over here a moment. I'll get a few blood samples from you and you can be on your way. It will take some time to process the results; I'll send the information to Batman's portable when it's done."

"Thanks, doc," Flash responded. "So," he turned to the other heroes. "Where to now?"

"We're going to check out the pizza place you stopped at when we picked you up at your home," Green Lantern told him. "It's our best lead right now."

Flash replied, "Oh yeah! Little Joey's. Hey, the guys and I went there for lunch this afternoon."

"Exactly," Green Lantern said. "We think the ingredients may have been tampered with."

"Well let's get to it!" Flash stated as soon as the doctor finished. He stood and hopped in place. "I'm feeling a lot better." Batman nodded his assent and they headed over to the teleportation beam. Once on the ground in Keystone City, Flash directed them to Little Joey's. It was already into the evening shift when they arrived and the building showed a steady flow of traffic. Walking up cleared out a couple loiterers, but the real show was inside. Passing the threshold the four heroes were treated to no less then four full-on fights, as well as a steady background of shouting.

Superman raised his eyebrows and said, "I think we might be on the right track."

"I don't know why I even bother, none of you appreciate my work here anyway! I let you eat my momma's recipe and I get paid crap for it!" One voice rose out above the others, clearly the owner judging by his tirade.

"Joey?" Flash questioned him.

The man spun around and his face hardened at the sight of the four men in his restaurant. "What do you want? Why don't you do your job and get these idiots out of my shop."

Batman stepped closer to him. "Where do you store your ingredients?"

"Why should I tell you? You're not the health department. Get out of my shop, I'm closing now," Joey snarled.

Batman took another step forward until he was in the man's personal space. "Where. Are your. Ingredients."

Obviously self-preservation kicked in because Joey eventually threw his hand in the direction of the back kitchen and turned away from them. Batman led them into the kitchen where they found a basic assembly line setup. Cheese and toppings in containers on top of the counter and below.

"I think we can rule out any extra toppings," Flash said. "Everyone gets different stuff on their pizza, there wouldn't be any way to insure the drug got to people. The only things everyone shares are dough, cheese, and sauce. And the dough even just sometimes because it's made in batches and for different types. There's thin crust and deep dish and pan and regular and square and—"

"Got it," Green Lantern interrupted. "You know your pizza. We'll check out the cheese and sauce first."

Batman was already leaning under the counter and grabbing something. He brought out an unopened bag of mozzarella from the cooler underneath. "Unless the drug is being manufactured by this dairy company, I'm guessing it's not the cheese either. All of these toppings, cheese included, are bought from outside companies who distribute to more places than just Little Joey's. If we assume this is ground zero for the drug, we can only focus on things made in-house. Namely the dough and sauce."

Flash had already zipped to another corner of the kitchen and was standing over a large basin. "Here," he called over.

They gathered around the pot of sauce. Batman grabbed a vial from his belt and took a sample for testing. "We won't know for sure if this is the cause until it can be analyzed. I'll take it back to the Watchtower and look into the toppings distributor to see if there are other cases, but you three should follow up on this lead now."

The others nodded at him and he turned to leave. Flash, Green Lantern, and Superman found Joey in the front of the shop again. "What now?" he grumbled. "Not done snooping through all my things?"

"Who made your sauce today, Joey?" Flash asked him.

"Peter. Good for nothing dropout."

"We need his contact information," Superman said.

Joey reluctantly gave the superheroes the information they wanted: address, phone, picture, work history. He was eager to get them to go away. They acquiesced and left for Peter's home. It turned out to be a small studio apartment in a rougher part of the city. They knocked to no answer. Superman narrowed his gaze to look inside with his X-Ray vision.

"He's not here," he told them. "The room is a disaster, scattered with paper and textbooks. And tomatoes."

"Well that's a clue if I ever heard one," Flash commentated.

Green Lantern touched his com-link and called Batman. "The person who makes the sauce is a kid named Peter Tolk, twenty years old, lives alone in Eastridge Apartments, number forty-two. He's not home, can you check out other contacts?"

Green Lantern could hear Batman clicking away at the computers in the Watchtower. He answered, "West Keys High School graduate. Father deceased, mother lives alone at thirty-seven-sixty-four Stone Bridge Circle. Cousin nearby at Riverway Apartments, number seventeen-B Dropped out of Keystone University after one year when his scholarship was cancelled. No felony record but he was recently held for trespassing on Keystone University's private property."

Superman said, "I'll check out his mother's house. Green Lantern, why don't you head to the cousin's place to see if he's been by. Flash?"

"I'll head over to the U, got it. Big place, but it shouldn't take me long to do a few sweeps." He nodded at the other two and they parted ways.

Flash was at the University in a few seconds and was trying to decide the best route to take through the school. He started with the Northern buildings and worked clockwise. Halfway through the South building, which housed the science department, he spotted just what he'd been on the lookout for. Flash saw the dim light coming through the cracked door of a chemical lab, a lab that clearly needed a key for entry and was in a section of the building that had already been locked down for the night.

He peered in though the crack and saw Peter, identifying him from his employee picture. He stepped back and quietly told Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern the situation. On any other team mission Flash might have waited for backup, he might have assessed his surroundings for weapons or tried to take out his target with his speed. Peter, though…Peter was just a kid. Seemingly regular, no identifiable powers, just cooking up a regular crime. The normal kind that Flash didn't often deal with.

He walked inside.

The boy hunched over the tabletop was lost in concentration. He was surrounded by beakers filled with substances Flash couldn't identify on sight. He was young, his face covered in grime and his hair flat with sweat. His eyes red and puffy.

"Peter," Flash softly called.

The boy's head shot up and he spun around. "F-f-f-flash! Wha…what are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here, Peter? You're not allowed in this part of the school anymore, not since you dropped out."

Peter's face twisted. "I didn't drop out!" He yelled before looking at the ground shamefully and turning his back to the Flash.

"Peter," Flash began. "Why have you been drugging strangers at work?" He could hear the boy's breath speed up.

"I…I didn't…"

"You're making more right now, aren't you? All of this is Keystone U's property. If We take it to the professor, what would he say you're concocting?"

Peter turned back to face Flash, the angry look back on his face. "Professor Jacobs doesn't know how to do half of this! He would have no idea what I'm doing!" he yelled.

"Did you know you drugged me today?" Flash could hear Superman and Green Lantern land in the hall behind him as they started to walk inside. "What's going on?" Flash asked.

Peter stuttered out, "It, it wasn't for you, F-flash. It's just an experiment."

"You're hurting people, Peter. You're forcing them to ingest something potentially dangerous."

"I just want them to understand!" he yelled at Flash. "They took it away! They took it all away from me. School was my only chance to get out of here someday. I earned it! It's not right for them to just take it away one day and say they don't want to pay for me anymore." Silent tears began to fall down his cheeks.

Flash approached him slowly, "Is it fair for you drug random strangers in retaliation?" He reached an arm out to the boy, who flinched away.

"It's the only way to show them! I know what I'm doing, I'm better than half the people in this place. Smarter." Peter kept mumbling to himself, reasoning away his actions.

Batman's voice came over the com-link. "Police should be there soon." And as if on cue, Flash saw and red and blue lights begin to blink against the window.

Peter looked up at the lights and a terrified look passed over him. "No! No, I'm just…it's just an experiment! You can't…!"

"I'm sorry, Peter," Superman said from behind him. "You need to go in."

Peter simply sunk to the floor, weak from his crying and not bothering to fight against three super powered heroes. When the police entered he tried once more to explain, to get himself pardoned, but the police simply cuffed him and started collecting the evidence in the lab.

Flash walked outside with the men holding Peter. As he was being put into the back of the squad car, Peter called out to him. "I thought you only fought super powered villains, Flash. What do you care about a kid who doses a little pizza sauce?"

Flash tilted his head, pretending to think about it for a second. "Truth is, Peter, it's not about having powers. It's about stopping bad things from happening when we have to ability to. Sure, a bad thing is you secretly drugging my favorite food to make the entire town hate everything. But just as bad is that you've been let down by so many people, making you feel like the world doesn't want you. If I'm going to call myself Keystone's hero, isn't it just as much my responsibility to help you live in a good environment, to provide opportunities through safe streets and extra construction jobs picking up after me?" He flashed a big grin.

Flash thought for another moment before continuing as Peter was put in the car. "I worked a dead end job when I first got out of high school. I couldn't support myself and I had to rely entirely on extended family members and the guys from my shop. You've got no one there, and I get that. You're going to jail, man, I can't do anything to help that because it was a bad decision you made. But you're a lot like me, believe it or not, and if you do your time and come see me when you're out, maybe I can be one of those people you can finally rely on."

Peter looked up at Flash, squinting his eyes against the sun in the background, and smiled.


End file.
